Monthly Archives: April 2017

I usually plant seeds outside in the garden on Earth Day. The soil and air are often warm enough by April 22nd and it’s often a pretty day. But this year I’m going to wait a week or maybe two for soil still saturated and cold from March rains to warm up a bit and for temperatures to rise a little more. Maybe this year’s first outside planting day will be May 1st, a date many Lopez Island old-timers recommended to me when I first started gardening here twenty-five years ago.

Despite the delay in planting seeds of spring vegetable crops, the kitchen garden is still providing food I associate with spring. New leaf growth on kale, arugula and chard provides salads, pesto sauces and sautés. And flower buds forming on kale, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, mustards and the last remaining rutabagas and turnips offer raab-like treats for pasta sauces and side dishes. Most exciting, asparagus is shooting up, growing quickly in spite of cool days and cooler nights. We’ve been enjoying some every night for the past week.

This burgeoning green in the garden is matched by the greening of the landscape outside the garden hedge. Willow and alder are leafing out, shrubs in the hedgerows show a film of green, and grass in the pastures seems taller and greener each day. I see this landscape from the kitchen as I cook.

Last night I sautéed kale flower buds with some of the last leeks, sliced and roasted some asparagus, thawed and simmered some fava beans frozen last summer

and mixed all of these green vegetables into a sauce for homemade pasta,

our kitchen garden version of pasta primavera to celebrate Earth Day, toasting the spirit that inaugurated Earth Day forty-seven years ago and hoping our activism can prevail against the current administration’s assault.

In another week or two I’ll plant seeds outside, carrots, beets, radishes and spring turnips. They’ll join starts of sugar snap peas, broccoli and cauliflower I set out this week. While I wait to plant outside, I can tend the summer vegetables growing in the warm shelter of the seed starting room and the greenhouse. Tomatoes I seeded indoors on February 22nd are planted in the greenhouse ground now, spreading up and out. Eggplant and peppers are in 4” pots in the greenhouse, adjusting to this new environment after their six weeks under lights in the seed room. When temperatures rise enough, I’ll set them out in their permanent bed under a hoop house in the garden. In the seed room, starts of fennel, radicchios and lettuces are ready to harden off and get into the ground as soon as the soil is ready. Spring may be slow this year, but it’s coming.